Recently, Brookings Senior Fellow Audrey Singer gave a presentation on “U.S. Immigration Demographics and Immigrant Integration” at the National White House Convening on Immigrant and Refugee Integration. In her presentation, Singer focused on trends in immigrant demographics, settlement patterns, and education and workforce characteristics. She also highlighted the contributions of the foreign-born population, showing how immigration has profoundly transformed the demography of the United States over the past several decades.

Singer reported that since 1990, the immigrant population has doubled in size to over 40 million, rising to nearly a 13 percent share of the U.S. population. As Singer points out, one-in-four children have at least one foreign-born parent.

The implications of this growing immigrant population are promising. Singer shows that during the next four decades, immigrants and their descendants will be responsible for nearly all of the growth in the U.S. labor force, along with starting new businesses, inventing new technologies, and contributing to the overall prosperity of their cities, the country, and the global economy.

Apple may be planning to launch the iPhone 6 on Tuesday, October 14 as the month itself will be an incredibly busy one for the company, according to a source that spoke to MacRumors citing an internal Apple Retail Store meeting.

The source notes that a senior Store Leader mentioned October 14th as being an “immense” day for Apple, adding that the whole month of October would be very busy for stores and the company itself. Apple is also said to planning a media event for Tuesday, September 16, coming a month ahead of the device’s launch.

4.7 and 5.5-inch iPhone 6 mockups compared to iPhone 5s

To this point, most reports have pointed to a September announcement and launch for the iPhone 6. However, a report last week claimed that Apple is planning a mid-September event for the iPhone 6 and iOS 8, which would be followed by an October event showcasing the iWatch, OS X Yosemite, newiPads, and new Macs. An announcement event for September 16 would also fall on a Tuesday, which is when Apple typically announces new products.

Apple launching the iPhone 6 on a Tuesday would be a change from past years….

Leading Off:•NY State Senate: Last month, the renegade Democrats who’ve conspired to hand control of New York’s state Senate to the GOP announced with great fanfare that they’d reached a “deal” to rejoin their mainstream colleagues and return to the fold. Most of the media, a lot of labor unions, and even supposed progressive exponents like New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio bought into the hype, but there were plenty of reasons from the get-go to mistrust the Independent Democratic Conference, and now we have full proof of their bad faith.

On Tuesday, IDC member David Valesky complained bitterly about the fact that two Democratic senators, Gustavo Rivera and Liz Krueger, were still supporting Oliver Koppell, who is challenging IDC chief Jeff Klein in September’s Democratic primary. But that’s not all. Valesky also made up a whole bunch of bullshit about what exactly the IDC’s non-deal entailed:

“It’s hard to comprehend why there’s been a blatant violation” by members of the regular Democratic Conference when their leadership pledged that no one would support Koppell, Valesky said.

Oh yes? When exactly did mainstream Democrats promise that no members would support Koppell? One of the IDC’s biggest complaints is that, allegedly, Senate Democrats are dysfunctional, so is Valesky seriously expecting lockstep martial adherence to this purported pledge? Even Darth Vader couldn’t successfully perform a Jedi mind trick on Ruben Diaz, Sr. (though he might want to Force-choke him).But like Vader, Valesky is trying to alter the deal. This “deal,” though, was exactly one sentence long:

“Therefore all IDC members are united and agree to work together to form a new majority coalition between the Independent Democratic Conference and the Senate Democratic Conference after the November elections in order to deliver the results that working families across this state still need and deserve.”

And as we noted at a time—and this is why I keep putting the word “deal” in scare quotes—this “deal” only involves the members of the IDC agreeing to work amongst themselves to reunite with the mainstream Democrats. It does not involve an actual agreement between the IDC and the Democrats. So not only is Valesky adding ridiculous, impossible, and unenforceable terms to the deal, there was no real deal in the first place!

That makes it pretty easy for the IDC to walk away from this fake deal, and Valesky’s already laying the groundwork to do so. Why is he doing so? Any answers would only be speculative. But we do know that Jeff Klein is an utter snake, and Valesky just one segment of his long tail. If the IDC winds up not rejoining the Democrats next year, no one will have any reason to be surprised….

According to a report from Politico’s Maggie Haberman, supporters of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie say he’s still a top tier 2016 hopeful—and their argument for why they believe that to be the case is pretty revealing:

Among the factors they point to: No smoking gun has emerged in Bridgegate. No one has replaced him as the early Republican front-runner in 2016. A big chunk of the Republican establishment remains dead set against Rand Paul. The person most likely to replace Christie as the establishment favorite, Jeb Bush, has receded to the background after a burst of attention this spring. And in his home state, Christie is working on mending fences with fellow Republicans he has feuded with in the past.

Yeah, no smoking gun has emerged in Bridgegate … except that little part about how Christie’s senior aides punished a political foe by causing a traffic jam in his home town and that Christie for months (in the most charitable reading of events) not only failed to recognize what was happening right beneath his nose, but mocked those who pressed for answers until he could no longer pretend that nothing had happened.But Bridgegate aside, the thing that really struck me about the pitch for Christie is that so much of it comes down to pointing out that the GOP’s 2016 field absolutely sucks. The only one they seem afraid of at all is Rand Paul, but when it comes to Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Scott Walker, and the rest of the crew, Team Christie is dismissive.

When the traffic scandal broke in January, attention quickly shifted to Bush as the natural alternative to Christie. But after a flurry of headlines, the overt pining for the former Florida governor has died down, mostly because he’s done little to sustain it.“Some days, Jeb’s around and some days, he’s not,” [Home Depot co-founder and Christie supporter Ken] Lagone said of how much he expresses interest.

Christie allies also are aware of the stumbles on immigration reform by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) last year, and they believe Scott Walker, the Wisconsin governor who has often been touted as the best candidate to unite warring wings of the Republican Party, will emerge too bruised from his reelection battle this year to be seriously in contention.

Even Republicans who don’t support Christie seem to be admitting the GOP has a pretty bad 2016 field, albeit unintentionally. For example:

Without Bridgegate, he “would have been one of the front-runners in New Hampshire,” said Dave Carney, a Granite State operative who was a longtime adviser to Texas Gov. Rick Perry. “But he’s back to ‘Go,’ where everyone else is.”

I don’t think Carney was trying to say that the rest of the field is bad, but if the only thing Bridgegate does is level the playing field between Christie and the other candidates, what other conclusion can you draw? If there were any other Republicans with front-runner potential who were serious about running, Chris Christie would have been toast in the wake of Bridgegate. Instead, he’s still making a serious run for it. And thanks to the fact that the GOP has so little talent at the presidential ranks, he probably still has a shot……

Wow it is July 31… where did July go? Polling is complete for our Tennessee Republican primary poll. Results will be appearing soon.CongressHouse/Senate Republicans: With the momentum, Senate Republicans are warning their House counterparts to not screw up before election day. Seeing the antics Republican Senate candidates did in 2010 and 2012, Senate Republicans really have no room to talk.

TN-4: It appears embattled sleezebag Congressman Scott DesJarlais has a fighting chance to remain in Congress. Although he has drawn a strong primary challenge from State Senator Jim Tracy, it appears DesJarlais’ voting record and recent cancer diagnosis are helping his chances to hold onto this ruby red seat.

KS-4: Former Congressman Todd Tiahrt is being pushed to the left in his bid to unseat incumbent and Tiahrt replacement Congressman Mike Pompeo. Tiahrt, whose previously been in bed with groups like the Club for Growth, is being attacked by them.

PA-Sen (2016): Senator Pat Toomey has opened up a 5 to 1 COH advantage over 2010 challenger and former Congressman Joe Sestak. Considering Sestak will likely face a primary, Toomey could enter the general election with a 10 to 1 COH advantage.

NRCC: Congressman Roger Williams is testing the waters to see if he could launch a challenge to NRCC Chairman Congressman Greg Walden. Walden is in his first term and has made it known he plans to run again for the NRCC Chairman spot. Williams appears to be getting the backing of people opposed to Walden’s support for openly gay candidates.

NRSC: NRSC Chairman and Senator Jerry Moran claims the playing field has expanded to at least 12 seats as Republican candidates are gaining strength across the country. If Moran could pull in 2/3 of those seats, I hope everyone of us who was skeptical of his NRSC role admits we were really wrong.

KS-Sen: Senator Pat Roberts’ tea party challenger doctor Milton Wolf might be dealing with a wounded group of supports who are enraged, but disheartened from the debacle that became the Mississippi US Senate primary. Wolf appears to be down by about 20 points with the election being Tuesday.

Authenticity: Red state Democrats are having a harder time winning over the necessary votes as they are being lumped together with national Democrats, but National Journal states the obvious and explains how candidates in states against their political grain can make successful careers.

POTUSChristie: Is Governor Chris Christie a political dead man walking or can he make a comeback and be a strong presidential candidate? I tend to think the later. Christie has shown some strong fundraising prowess with the RGA and has built a good network of contacts.

Clinton: Hillary Clinton is obviously making sure to hit every identity politics issue on the Democratic side by demanding the Washington Redskins change their name.

House Republicans abruptly delayed their August recess on Thursday to stay in Washington and try to pass legislation responding to the border crisis.

After GOP leaders pulled their $659 million spending bill from the schedule, it appeared the House would leave Washington having failed to approve a measure dealing with the wave of immigrant children crossing the border.

But an outcry from rank-and-file members ended that plan, and GOP leaders are now trying to figure out how to change their legislation to win over the votes necessary to send the bill to the Senate.
“We’ll stay until we vote,” House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) said as he exited a meeting of the House Republican conference Thursday afternoon that dragged on for more than 90 minutes.

The House under Speaker John Boehner WAS gonna do a vote on a Border Bill….

That WAS until the SENATOR sat down with his HOUSE Tea Party Conservatives and derailed the House leadership’s vote….

Who’s in Charge here?

On Tuesday, House Republicans finally unveiled their bill to respond to the child migrant crisis. The plan: pass the bill Thursday, then pressure the Senate and White House into accepting it, rather than allowing no bill to pass at all. By the time House Republicans went home for the August congressional recess, they’d either be able to brag about having fixed the crisis — or they’d be able to blame Barack Obama and Harry Reid for blocking their attempts to do so.

Here was the problem with that plan: Ted Cruz, a Republican who’s not even in the House, wanted to ruin it.

Cruz wants any deal on child migrants and the border to include defunding the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. DACA allows unauthorized immigrant students and young adults who’ve been in the US since 2007 to apply for temporary relief from deportation and a work permit. It’s also, in the eyes of Republicans, Exhibit A in the case that President Obama refuses to enforce immigration law.

Cruz has blamed DACA for the child migrant crisis (evidence to the contrary), and has introduced his own bill to defund “expansion” of the program. (The bill would prohibit the federal government from using any money to approve new applications.) Now, according to the Washington Post, he whipped House Republicans to vote against their own leadership’s bill, because it wouldn’t include the DACA provision. And on the last day before recess, instead of voting on the bill, House leadership decided to pull it from the floor.

Cruz only needed to win a few defectors — and many conservatives in Congress were probably inclined to vote against the bill anyway.The House equivalent of Cruz’ bill (introduced by Rep. Kay Blackburn) had 31 cosponsors. Cruz only needed to persuade half of them that ending DACA is important enough to risk torpedoing the bill.

Here’s the irony, though: Cruz’ own bill wouldn’t actually do much to derail DACA…..

Will these things help him for re-election and in the GOP 2016 Presidential Sweepstakes?…

The Wisconsin Supreme Court upheld Gov. Scott Walker’s signature labor legislation Thursday in just one of the three major rulings issued by the court on union bargaining, election law and same-sex couples.

In addition to ruling that Walker’s labor law is constitutional, the state’s highest court also upheld the state’s voter ID law and upheld a 2009 law providing limited benefits to gay and lesbian couples.

After more than three years of litigation, the court’s seven justices on Thursday put to rest the last of the major legal disputes over Act 10, the 2011 law repealing most union bargaining for most public employees.

The state court’s decisions on the voter ID and domestic partner registry, however, could still be overtaken by decisions in separate but related cases in federal court.

This isn’t the first time that a higher court has considered a challenge to Walker’s union law.

The state Supreme Court ruled in June 2011 that lawmakers could easily avoid the state’s open meetings law and did not violate that statute in passing the labor limits. And the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld Act 10 in its entirety in two challenges in federal court.

The decision was 5-2, with Justice Michael Gableman writing the lead opinion. He was joined by Justices David Prosser, Patience Roggensack and Annette Ziegler. Justice N. Patrick Crooks concurred but wrote separately….

The last time we had something like this was the Clinton Presidency years….

People even look back at that time not in terms of scandal or anything else…

They remember the good feeling of a good economic time….

Could Barack Obama be aiming for that same good feeling?

Could it lift the Democrats chances and turnout in the next two elections?

President Obama is tying his legacy to a growing economy, seizing on the administration’s successes in boosting the nation during financial woes.

Bolstered by a string of positive economic reports, the administration hopes it can increase Democrats’ chances of holding the Senate this fall by highlighting Obama’s stewardship of the economy.

More broadly, the White House hopes to ride the wave of an economic recovery to improve Obama’s approval numbers over the final two years of his presidency, setting up a possible Democratic successor at the White House.

“It’s the best possible legacy item,” said one former senior administration official. “The elections in 2008 and 2012 were all about the economy and if the nation could bounce back after such terrible times. And look, it shows that, not only did we bounce back, but things are going to an even better place, one where a potential predecessor could build a foundation.”

On Wednesday, the Commerce Department said the economy grew at a 4 percent annual rate in the second quarter. The report also included revised figures for 2013 that showed much stronger growth at the end of last year.

In the final three months of 2013, the economy expanded at a 3.5 percent rate, up from the previous estimate of 2.6 percent. And in the third quarter, growth was revised to 4.5 percent from 4.1 percent.

Hours after the report was released, Obama adopted a confident and fiery tone while making remarks on the economy.

For much of his speech in Kansas City, Mo., he ticked off the nation’s economic successes. Since he took over at the helm, millions of new jobs have been added, he said.

Time and again, he recalled where the nation stood at the height of the financial crisis when he entered the Oval Office at the beginning of 2009.

“The crisis that hit near the end of my campaign back in 2008, it would end up costing millions of Americans their jobs, their homes, their sense of security,” Obama told the packed crowd at a theater in the Show Me State. “But we have fought back. We have got back on our feet. We have dusted ourselves off.”

The NY Times is pouring fuel on the developing fight between the New York Governor Cuomo and US Attorney for Southern New York Bharara….

The fight over the Governors Commission to look for corruption in the New York Legislature could turn into a look for corruption in the Governor’s administration….

We now have the US Attorney warning the Governor that HE might be the target of an investigation….

Suddenly a Governor who is cruising to reelection finds himself in a tough spot….

In an escalation of the confrontation between the United States attorney in Manhattan, Preet Bharara, and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo over the governor’s cancellation of his own anticorruption commission, Mr. Bharara has threatened to investigate the Cuomo administration for possible obstruction of justice or witness tampering.

The warning, in a sharply worded letter from Mr. Bharara’s office, came after several members of the panel issued public statements defending the governor’s handling of the panel, known as the Moreland Commission, which Mr. Cuomo created last year with promises of cleaning up corruption in state politics but shut down abruptly in March.

Mr. Bharara’s office has been investigating the shutdown of the commission, and pursuing its unfinished corruption cases, since April.

The letter from prosecutors, which was read to The New York Times, says, “We have reason to believe a number of commissioners recently have been contacted about the commission’s work, and some commissioners have been asked to issue public statements characterizing events and facts regarding the commission’s operation.”

Politico has Dennis Ross, a special assistant to President Barack Obama from 2009-11, writing that Secretary of State John Kerry MUST adjust his approach to dealing with the conflict between Hamas and Israel, which has a lot of countries standing on the sidelines rooting for very different things….Ross says Hamas has launched its actions out of desperation….and to try to strengthen it’s political standing….

Secretary of State John Kerry’s efforts to produce a cease-fire may not have succeeded in bringing the current conflict in Gaza to an end, but they have generated plenty of commentary. Kerry has been lacerated in the Israeli press, even in ostensibly sympathic outlets like the left-wing Haaretz, which headlined a scathing article on his diplomatic endeavors “What was he thinking?” For understandable reasons, the secretary sought to bring the killing to an end, reflecting not only a humanitarian impulse but also President Obama’s instructions, which required him “to push for an immediate cessation of hostilities based on a return to the November 2012 cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas.”

While perhaps logical, the president’s guidance failed to take account of several new realities. First, the 2012 agreement had done nothing to prevent Hamas from building up an elaborate network of tunnels to launch rockets and infiltrate Israel—and Israel is not about to live with tunnels that penetrate the country and constitute, in the words of one Israeli, “a loaded gun at our heads.” Second, this is a different Egypt today, under President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, and it views Hamas as a threat rather than a potential ally. It has no interest in saving Hamas or allowing it to gain from the current conflict. Third, the Saudis, Emiratis and Jordanians see the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist group from which Hamas sprang, as just as threatening as Iran. Like Egypt, these moderate Arab states want to see Hamas lose and not win.

These new realities also help to explain why Hamas launched this round of fighting: It was isolated and in desperate shape financially. Egypt had cut off the smuggling tunnels from Sinai into Gaza, which accounted for most of Hamas’ revenues. Hamas’ other main source of funding, the Iranians, has dried up given differences over the Syrian conflict and Iran’s other priorities. Hamas expected that its reconciliation agreement with the Palestinian Authority would lead to the PA picking up Hamas’ financial obligations. But the PA would not do so, and Hamas could not pay salaries. With little to lose, Hamas launched this round of fighting, hoping that by being the focal point of resistance, winning sympathy because of large Palestinian civilian casualties, and imposing at least some losses on Israel, it could re-emerge as a player that must be dealt with and satisfied.

The Air Force has been in SEVERAL scrapes with Pentagon bosses in trying to buy airplanes, that have ended up costing, too much (F-35), incurred cost overruns (F-35), ended up being rebid (KC-46A)…..

It is about time they admitted that their current way of doing things is wasteful and vast disservice to the American taxpayer….(Congress isn’t much help)

In an acknowledgment that the military may be pricing itself out of business, the Air Force on Wednesday called for a shift away from big-ticket weapon systems that take decades to develop and a move toward high-technology armaments that can be quickly adapted to meet a range of emerging threats.

An Air Force strategic forecast, looking 20 years into the future and spurred in part by looming budget constraints, also calls for a faster pace, with lower price tags, in developing both airmen and the technology they use, warning that the current way of acquiring warplanes and weapons is too plodding.

The report, described as a “call to action” by Secretary Deborah Lee James of the Air Force, limits itself to how the country’s most tech-heavy military service can adapt to looming threats and budget constraints. But it is also a warning to and an admission from the entire Defense Department that with military compensation and retirement costs rising sharply, the country may soon be unable to afford the military it has without making significant changes to the way it does business.

“To boil this down, we have to buy things very differently and develop and employ our people differently,” said Maj. Gen. David W. Allvin, one of the authors of the report. “We have to behave more like an innovative 21st-century company.”

The Senate doesn’t seem able to get a bill out that would give President Obama more money to handle the overflown on children coming to America across the Mexican border and just when House GOP Speaker Boehner THOUGHT he had a bill that would give money, but would require all immigrants from South of the Border be shipped back immediately….His fellow Republican…Senator Ted Cruz (R-Tx) has gotten together with his old Tea Party Army buddies IN THE HOUSE to require a defunding of Obama’s Deferred Action for Child Arrivals program,. which is based on a 2008 Bill from George Bush’s term in office….Before voting to fund handling the children currently in the system…

Here we go again…..

“The Obama White House should put Ted Cruz on the payroll,” said Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.), a vocal Cruz opponent. “We have a chance to pass a good bill, not a perfect bill. Boehner is working hard to get to 218 votes and yet there is Ted Cruz, telling us to do nothing. If he wants to come over and run for speaker, that’s fine, but otherwise he should stay over there in the Senate.”

Boehner has not promised victory on the immigration bill, suggesting Tuesday that Republicans had “a little more work to do.” With most Democrats expected to vote against the measure, Boehner needs every GOP vote he can find and has been busy trying to win support from Reps. Steve King (Iowa), Louie Gohmert (Tex.), Matt Salmon (Ariz.) and other conservatives.

At conference meeting Tuesday, Boehner announced that he would pare down his initial framework after hearing numerous complaints about its size and scope. On Thursday morning, he will meet again with GOP members to underscore the importance of passing his plan and giving the party a document that shows its ability to find consensus.

But Steve King, Gohmert and Salmon — along with Cruz and others — want House Republicans to defund Obama’s Deferred Action for Child Arrivals program, which has granted temporary relief for some children of illegal immigrants and is set for renewal this fall. Boehner has resisted the idea. But late Wednesday, GOP aides said that leaders were likely to allow a vote on a standalone bill that would defund DACA before voting to approve the border spending measure. If the bill to defund DACA were to pass, it wasn’t clear exactly how House leaders would merge the two proposals and send them to the Senate.

“The only way to stop the border crisis is to stop Obama’s amnesty,” Cruz said in a statement…

President Obama is signaling that he is likely to grant work permits for millions of illegal’s who are in the US as Dream Act students and military persons and others who have been in this country for years….

Ok….I NEVER thought the Republicans where dumb enough to actually do this…..

I see shades of Bill Clinton here and corresponding rebound in support for a beleagured President under attack by people who haven’t done a damn thing themselves but try to stop him from ‘doing his job’…..

And they’re gonna hit up the US taxpayer to pay for this ?

The House voted Wednesday to rebuke President Obama by passing a resolution authorizing a lawsuit against his use of executive power.

The 225-201 vote fell along party lines, with five Republicans voting against the measure. No Democrats supported it.

The lawsuit is a direct response to GOP frustration with Obama’s wide-ranging use of executive power.Republicans have been particularly angry over Obama’s decision to ignore several deadlines in the Affordable Care Act and his decision to defer the deportation of certain young people who illegally immigrated to the United States as children.In the last week, lawmakers have been riled up by reports that immigration advocates and Democrats are pushing the administration to take additional executive actions to give more immigrants legal status.Rather than seeking to impeach Obama, however, GOP leaders in the House rallied around the lawsuit as a way of bottling up grassroots anger that would not backfire on Republicans in an election year.

And Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has insisted he has no intention of moving an impeachment measure.

Boehner’s words have hardly been enough assurance for Democratic leaders, however, who said after Wednesday’s vote that the lawsuit is just the first step toward the GOP’s ultimate goal: the impeachment of Obama…..

Leading Off:•AR-Sen, -Gov: Democratic Sen. Mark Pryor has just released a new internal poll from Harstad Research that places him up 45-39 on GOP Rep. Tom Cotton. This is actually the first poll since early May to find Pryor leading, but except for the recent YouGov survey that had Cotton ahead 50-46, every single set of numbers between then and now has come from Republican outfits.

However, we did also finally get some new data from a traditional independent pollster on Tuesday, shortly after Pryor (perhaps pre-emptively) released his own numbers. The latest Talk Business-Hendrix College poll shows the race headed in Cotton’s direction. He now leads 44-42, with the Green Party candidate taking 4 and the Libertarian 3. In April, back when a spate of polls brought good news for the incumbent, Pryor was up 46-43.

This is the first time we’ve seen any data from Harstad, so we don’t have any trendlines to examine. But we did recently take a look at Harstad’s track record, and for the most part, they did quite well last cycle, without a consistent bias in either direction. The Hendrix trendlines, though, are quite concerning for Pryor.

P.S. While it’s not included in the memo, James Hohmann says Harstad also found Republican Asa Hutchinson edging Democrat Mike Ross 42-41 in the governor’s race….

Stay tuned later this week for the result of the RRH TN-Senate GOP Primary Poll!Congress:

AK-Sen: Senator Mark Begrich (D), who is high on the Republican’s target list, released a new radio ad touting how he is working together with fellow Alaskan Senator Lisa Murkowski (R). Murkowski has refused to play along, and has stated that Begrich should run on his own record and that she’ll support the Republican nominee so long as it’s not Miller. Someone should ask her to put that into an ad.

AZ-7: Phoenix Pastor and Democratic congressional candidate Rev. Jarrett Maupin has received an unusual endorsement in his attempt to replace outgoing Congressman Ed Pastor. The Great Alaskan Bush Company of Phoenix, which is a strip club, has given him a public endorsement on the front of their establishment. According to Maupin, the club employees voted to endorse him due to his support for affordable student loans and all-day kindergarten, though he denies every visiting the establishment.

GA-Sen: Michelle Nunn’s (D) internal campaign strategy memo leak just got a lot more interesting. It reveals that as part of a non-profit organization, she helped validate a charity that was tied to a group secretly funding Hamas. There are plenty of fuzzy parts to the story relating to how connected the groups involved were, but expect to see more about it as David Perdue (R) ramps up his general election campaign.

TN-Sen: Joe Carr (R), the Republican challenging incumbent Senator Lamar Alexander in the primary, has been paying his daughters out of his campaign account. Carr claims there’s nothing wrong with this, and points out that he had to build his campaign from the ground up, so hiring family members was natural.

Camouflaged amid the legal medicinal and recreational marijuana market, the ever-adaptable underground market thrives. Some in law enforcement and on the street say it may be as strong as it’s ever been, so great is the unmet local and visitor demand.

That the black market bustles in the emerging days of legalization is not unexpected. By some reckonings, it will continue as long as residents of other states look to Colorado — and now Washington state — as the nation’s giant cannabis cookie jar. And, they add, as long as its legal retail competition keeps prices high and is taxed by state and local government at rates surpassing 30 percent.

“I don’t know who is buying for recreational use at dispensaries unless it’s white, middle-class people and out-of-towners,” Rudy Reddog Balles, a longtime community activist and mediator. “Everyone I know still has the guy on the street that they hook up with.”

This black market boom, the state argues, is a temporary situation. As more legal recreational dispensaries and growers enter the market, the market will do what it does with greater competition: adjust. Prices will fall. The illegal market will shrink accordingly.

In any case, these first curious months of the legal recreational market have laid bare a socioeconomic fault line. Resentment bubbles in the neighborhoods where marijuana has always been easy to get.

The resentment goes something like: We Latinos and African Americans from the ‘hood were stigmatized for marijuana use, disdained and disproportionately prosecuted in the war on drugs. We grew up in the culture of marijuana, with grandmothers who made oil from the plants and rubbed it on arthritic hands. We sold it as medicine. We sold it for profit and pleasure.

Now pot is legalized and who benefits? Rich people with their money to invest and their clean criminal records and 800 credit scores. And here we are again: on the outskirts of opportunity. A legion of entrepreneurs with big plans and rewired basements chafes with every monthly state tax revenue report…..